


Photographic Memory

by kahvikummitus



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s07e16 Workforce, F/M, don't ask me what happened to voyager honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 08:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10850085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kahvikummitus/pseuds/kahvikummitus
Summary: Workforce AU, where Voyager never comes back for its crew, and Tom and B'Elanna begin to remember bits of their previous lives.(Title chosen because it's almost one in the morning and I'm too tired to think of a real title.)





	Photographic Memory

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly still super emotional about how Tom cared for B'Elanna and her unborn baby even when he didn't remember that they were married and the baby was his, so I wrote this. I'm not gonna say this is a great fic, because I haven't written much fic in ages, and I wrote this instead of sleeping, and it's not been proof-read or anything. But it's up here, in case you guys wanna read it.
> 
> It's actually been a while since I've seen the episode so I don't remember if the memory thing was explained - whether the characters had false memories or were aware of their memory loss or not. So I made something up.
> 
> Finally, I should maybe point out that the only birth I've been present at was my own, of which I understandably have no memories, so my knowledge of them is limited to what I have learnt from media and from my time as a biology undergrad. If I've got details wrong, that'll be why.

Tom’s shift finishes just as B’Elanna is leaving, and he follows her out to walk her home.

“You really don’t need to,” she says, but with more gratefulness than irritation, so he grins and walks with her anyway.

“I guess I’m just a good person like that.” B’Elanna rolls her eyes.

“Maybe you are,” she says.

At her door, he kisses her on the cheek.

* * *

 

B’Elanna lets Tom buy her tea one afternoon, and admits that her past is something of a mystery.

“I have no memories of what happened before I came here a few weeks ago. I didn’t even realise it until a couple of days ago, when you asked me about who the father of my child was. It’s like I can’t even think about what happened before.”

Concern flashes on his face, and she doesn’t think it’s a good look on him, so she changes the subject. They talk about work, about the expecting couple Tom introduced B’Elanna to, about how cold the autumn is getting and how the heating in Tom’s apartment is inadequate.

“Have you thought about a name for your child yet?” Tom asks.

“If it’s a girl, I want to name her Miral, after my mother. I haven’t decided on a name for a boy yet.”

“You wouldn’t want to name him after your father?”

“I may only remember the names of my parents, and nothing else, but I feel that I wouldn’t want to name a child after him.”

Tom suggests naming the child after himself, and B’Elanna rolls her eyes and gives him a little shove, but she puts the name on her mental shortlist anyway.

* * *

 

As the birth of the child approaches, B’Elanna goes on maternity leave and is bored out of her mind. Tom comes over a lot, helping her put together the nursery and to keep her company.

“I’m sorry I have to rely on you so much. I haven’t really managed to make a lot of friends here,” she says one day, and Tom just tells her to sit down and let him finish making lunch.

“I’m not here out of some sense of responsibility, you know,” he says, and that’s definitely a lie, at least in part. “I’m here because I’m your friend and I want to help you.” That’s not a lie.

Kathryn Janeway, who has befriended the two, joins them for lunch that day, bringing with her flowers and a box full of things for the baby. B’Elanna, who doesn’t normally express much emotion besides anger, nearly tears up. Kathryn and B’Elanna share a long hug, and B’Elanna finds she likes the feeling of not being lonely.

* * *

 

B’Elanna is folding baby clothes when it begins. She has had a few false alarms, so she doesn’t take it seriously when the contractions begin, but eventually it occurs to her that this is the real deal. She calls Tom to let him know, because he asked, and then grabs the bag she has prepared. The hospital is not far, and somehow, stopping a few times for contractions, she makes it with help from a few friendly strangers.

Tom turns up, because of course he does, and he tells the nurses some lie about being the father of the baby, and when B’Elanna screams her way through labour, he doesn’t take it personally.

Eventually, there is a child and her name is Miral, and Tom is beaming when he finally gets to hold her. He looks so proud, almost like Miral was his own, and B’Elanna thinks it might just be exhaustion but she can almost see a resemblance between the two. For a moment, she lets herself make believe, thinks about what it would be like if it was true. They would all go home together, to a shared home, with a shared last name on their mailbox. Every night, they would kiss little Miral good-night, and then collapse into their shared bed, and when Miral cried out in the middle of the night, they would argue over whose turn it was to get up.

Before her brain reaches the toddler years and the school years and the rest of it, her thoughts are interrupted by Tom whispering softly to Miral. He’s singing a lullaby, quietly, so as not to wake B’Elanna who he thinks is asleep. She does fall asleep a moment later.

When B’Elanna wakes up, Tom is not in the room, and a nurse brings Miral in to be fed. The same nurse then brings in a form.

“What’s that?” B’Elanna asks, and is told it is the for she needs to fill in to register the birth.

“You don’t need to do it now, you have twenty days from the birth to register it, but most parents prefer to get it done right away, and we can help with all the details,” the nurse explains.

It’s been partially filled in already, with B’Elanna’s name and information from when she checked into the hospital, and then _Thomas Eugene Paris_ as the father.

“You’ve got Tom’s details on here as well?” she asks, her voice a little shaky, and finishing the sentence is difficult.

“We had him give us his details when he came in.”

“Of course,” B’Elanna says, and asks the nurse to leave the form for her to finish later. She’s too tired to start explaining the mistake and ask for another form.

* * *

 

Tom returns later that day, and he’s very apologetic when B’Elanna shows him the form with his name on it.

“I honestly didn’t know that was why they wanted my details. I didn’t really think about it too much, I just wanted to see you, and Miral.”

He goes to hospital reception to explain the mistake, and procures a new empty form, without his name on it. (The other form he hangs on to, saying he’ll get rid of it, and wondering if that’s a lie. He’s been very dishonest recently.)

* * *

 

The first thing B’Elanna wants to do when she gets home is sleep. She’s slept plenty at the hospital, of course, but it isn’t the same, and she looks forward to a shower and her own bed and quality bonding time with her new daughter. She has spent the week before the birth preparing meals for the freezer (a suggestion of her friend who gave birth about a month before B’Elanna did) and making sure the first few days at least she wouldn’t have to think too much.

Tom drops her off at her apartment, and looks rather guilty when she asks him if he’s been to work at all the last few days.

“I asked for time off.”

B’Elanna lets out a frustrated sigh and closes her eyes like she can’t believe this man. Then she hugs him, tight, and even when she loosens her grip a little they don’t let go. One of his hands is stroking her shoulder blade, the other her hair. When he lifts her chin up to kiss her, she lets him.

They put Miral to bed together, and then Tom leaves. He doesn’t stay gone long, though.

The next week, B’Elanna is sure Tom spends more time at her apartment than he does at his own. It doesn’t bother her – he’s a good cook, and he tells Miral stories even though she doesn’t understand them, and he sings to her a lot, and doesn’t mind changing her diapers.

The kiss is not mentioned, not until six days later, when it is repeated.

When the kiss ends, B’Elanna has a memory of Tom wearing a red and black outfit she’s never seen him wear, and a grin she has definitely seen him wear. Back in the present, he’s looking at her with wonder.

“Why do I feel like we’ve done that before?” he says.

“We have. The day I came back from hospital,” she replies.

“I don’t mean that. I mean—almost like in some other life.”

She doesn’t know what to say, so she nods.

“You know, I’ve tried to think about it, and I can’t remember anything from before my arrival here either. And when I try to think about it, I sometimes get these flashes of you. And I can’t explain it.”

“Maybe we knew each other before. I just had a memory of you, in some kind of uniform, I think.”

Tom sleeps on B’Elanna’s couch that night as they try to figure out what all this could mean. That night, he dreams of her wearing some sort of black-and-white outfit, arguing with him and the argument ending in a proposal. He wakes up wondering if it was real, if it was a memory of some past Tom being lucky enough to have B’Elanna agree to share her life with him. He wonders if it’s just a fantasy, a future he wants.

Over breakfast, he tells her about it. He thinks it might not be particularly wise, but he’s shocked enough and in love enough to want to tell it.

“I think I remember it too,” B’Elanna replies.

* * *

 

A few days later, with more memories they both share, they have made a decision.

The original form, identifying Tom as the father, is taken to the magistrate’s office for the birth to be registered. The clerk who takes the form and issues the birth certificate mentions how much the child looks like both her parents – “she takes after her mother, obviously, but the smile is clearly her father’s”.

Tom has brought his few possessions to B’Elanna’s apartment, and though sleeping in the same bed is a little awkward still, they are glad to be near each other.

“I love you,” Tom says, for the first time that he can remember.

“I love you too,” B’Elanna replies.

They had decided, in the end, that whether or not these supposed memories were real, their feelings certainly were, and that would be enough for now.

“If it doesn’t work out, then at least we’ll have had this happiness,” Tom says. And it is happiness. Whether Miral is Tom’s child by blood, whether Tom and B’Elanna were ever married in some past life, they are together now, a family.

* * *

 

As months pass, more memories come back.

It becomes evident that somehow, they got here from a starship on which they both worked – he as helm officer, she as chief engineer. They never mention this to anyone, not even to the rest of the crew they see around the town. Not to Kathryn Janeway, their former captain. Whatever has become of the ship, they will never get back.

“Why do you think we remember?” Tom asks one night.

“I don’t know,” B’Elanna says. “But I’m glad we do.”

Miral is sleeping between them on the bed. She managed to crawl a little for the first time that day, and Tom had taken at least thirty pictures of the event. She will grow up never knowing the homes of her parents.

That weekend, Tom and B’Elanna marry for the second time, in a small ceremony. Kathryn Janeway, who officiated their first wedding, is one of their witnesses, and she holds little Miral for the duration of the ceremony. It’s a little heart-breaking to think of, but they get through the day without any tears that aren’t those of joy. After the ceremony, there’s just a dinner at Tom and B’Elanna’s apartment. There wasn’t much point, they felt, to a huge ceremony or reception when most of their friends had no memory of them, and when their families were halfway across the galaxy.

* * *

 

Some years and a few government-sanctioned memory treatments masquerading as routine inoculations later, Tom and B’Elanna are dropping off their daughter Miral at school. They don’t really remember her birth. There’s a picture in their living room from their wedding day, where they’re smiling and holding their little child – they don’t really remember that day, but they must have been happy. They still are.


End file.
